


Next-morning-itis

by Feather (lalaietha)



Series: Settle in and find your home [6]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, Pepper is awesome, Recovery, Sam Wilson is a mental health professional, Sam has Steve's back, Sam is not here for Tony Stark's shit, but Sam also has a life of his own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-05
Updated: 2015-04-05
Packaged: 2018-03-21 09:55:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,425
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3687843
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/Feather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>[Sam] doesn't care if the rumours are true and Genius Stark <i>does</i> have a computer program or even an AI to screen his calls, eventually <i>that's</i> going to get tired of Sam calling, even if it has to develop sapience first to do it. Although Sam's phone might beat him to it: he feels like Siri's getting annoyed at him already. Doesn't matter. He can do this <i>all day</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Next-morning-itis

**Author's Note:**

> This series is linked to my [your blue-eyed boys](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1690700/chapters/3595874) and [(even if i could) make a deal with god](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585), and explores both Sam's pov of same and also other things Sam is doing in his own life. 
> 
> This fic takes place congruent to the middle part of [your blue-eyed boys (1: someone's bound to get burned), chapter 1](http://archiveofourown.org/series/132585).

Sam gets into his first sort-of fight with Tony Stark the morning after Barnes shows up at Steve's, when Steve doesn't respond to texts or calls by about ten in the morning. Which, for a man who runs his life like a clock around waking up at oh-five-thirty, is a big goddamn lag. And Sam can't call the police, so he calls Stark instead. 

Well, texts him, at least to start off. Then, when Sam gets tired of first being blown off by Stark insisting it's all fine and then being ignored, calls. 

Repeatedly. Because at first Stark ignores those, too. Might even have whatever phone this number calls set to silent. Sam's not about to let that deter him, though, and so he sits in his office doing the paperwork that he did have this morning slated to do, with the phone flat on the desk beside the file, turned to speaker. And every time it goes to the most obnoxious possible voicemail message ever (seriously "if you don't know how to use voicemail by now I really can't help you" might be cute the first time, but by the eighth, Sam is unbelievably over it), Sam hangs up and hits redial. 

He doesn't care if the rumours are true and Genius Stark _does_ have a computer program or even an AI to screen his calls, eventually _that's_ going to get tired of Sam calling, even if it has to develop sapience first to do it. Although Sam's phone might beat him to it: he feels like Siri's getting annoyed at him already. Doesn't matter. He can do this _all day_.

The first time he'd had to do this to Riley, they hadn't invented smart-phones yet. Nobody could get into righteous all-encompassing never-talking-to-you-again overreaction and sulks like Riley, although the "never" in "never talking to you again" usually ended up being about a week. Sam'd put up with it the first couple times, mostly because the first time he kinda deserved it and the second time . . . actually he's not sure why he put up with it the second time, except that Riley got him to put up with a lot, because Riley was basically a wonderful person with some really damn bad habits left over from really damn bad parents. 

The third time, Sam'd had enough. 

It was about the thirtieth call that Riley picked up, with an aggrieved snarl of, "You know, this is a tactic stalkers use?" 

Sam had retorted, "Yeah, they use it cuz it works. I'm using it because you're full of bullshit and I swear to God if you hang up on me I'll just do it again, and if you ditch the cell phone I'll call the fucking MPs and report you missing, last seen at a club with some Mexican gang boys, and I'll sound really fucking worried about it, too." 

"What the fuck is _wrong_ with you?" and for once Riley sounded really startled. Like it hadn't occurred to him anyone else could play these games. 

"You want to play bullshit kids games," Sam'd told him, "I will show you bullshit kids games like you have never fucking seen. _Or_ we can both be fucking grownups and talk about this. Your call." 

Now, Sam stoically does the same damn thing to Stark, and doesn't even _know_ how many times he's redialled - although his phone probably does - before Stark gives up and answers the fucking phone. 

He answers it with, "For the love of little green rat-fucking _monkeys_ tell me you are not manually dialling this shit," and he sounds a little awed to go along with his exasperated beyond belief. 

"Redial count?" Sam retorts. 

" _Jesus Christ_ ," Stark says, "are you his friend or his _mom_?" 

And okay maybe Steve has mentioned that one of the keys to dealing with Tony Stark is not losing your temper no matter how hard he tries to make you, but for one Sam's pretty sure that's a genuine reaction from Stark, here and now, and two actually Sam will just take the opportunity to _fucking lose his temper_ at something, even if it's not useful. 

So he starts to snarl, "No, you know what I am, Stark? What I _am_ is the only mother _fucking_ person alive on this fucking _continent_ right now who has a single fucking realistic - " except then there's . . . weird sounds. 

Well, actually, they sound like someone's fighting over a phone, that's just . . . not what Sam would expect to hear just now, especially not with a low female voice almost hissing something and Stark's voice going, "Hey - ! _Pepper -_ " 

And then that female voice - which is kind of pleasant, actually, and definitely modulated right to Phone Voice, says, "Mr Wilson, good morning," and then just as Sam's brain zeros in on who it has to be, "this is Pepper. What Tony is completely failing to pass along is that right now J - we have police and emergency services in Steve's neighbourhood pretty closely monitored and there has been absolutely no activity, and we're pretty sure there would be if anything were wrong. But if Steve doesn't check in by noon, of _course_ Tony will be going over to check." 

In the background Sam hears Stark's voice saying, "What? I am? No I'm no - why, why with that look - okay fine, whatever, that's _completely_ not a waste of time. You know, I'm starting to get really insulted - " and then there's the sound of the speaker being covered and, Sam's willing to bet, something like _shut up, Tony_ being muttered. 

Sam, meanwhile, exhales slowly and carefully, and has to admit the note about no-emergency-services-activity actually does something for the worry. "Right," he says, and "thank you very much," and, since he's still talking to her, "I'm sorry if I disrupted your morning," with maybe a touch of emphasis on the _your_ because he's really not sorry for disrupting Stark's morning at all. "Just, you know, I'm here - " 

"I _completely_ understand," Potts interjects, " _believe_ me. I'm sorry Tony's having a stubborn little snit. Did you need anything else?" 

Painkillers, Sam thinks, the tension headache starting now that he's unlocked his jaw, but says aloud, "If you could just let me know if you hear anything, I'd really appreciate it." 

"Absolutely," she says, and they exchange good-byes, and Sam reflects that his life _also_ didn't use to include random personal conversations with the CEOs of major multinationals before lunch, either.

 

At about ten to twelve, Steve checks in with what looks like something he's sending to more than one person - _I’m fine, I just slept in, sorry if you were bothered_ \- and Sam grimaces and takes a few Tylenol on top of the Advil he took before, when the second level of headache washes its way in as he makes his jaw unclench a _second_ time. He also goes for some coffee, because his body really wants to sleep and envies Steve the sleeping in. 

Sam tells his body to shut the fuck up right now, even touches wood as he goes by one of the hall tables, because thanks he will take just about _none_ of anything Steve's got right now: where he is now is as close as he has _any_ interest in getting. Hell, those extra hours of sleep probably didn't even do Steve much good. Sam'll take the coffee and like it. 

By the time he gets back to his desk Steve's texted him the more personalized, _I'm sorry, I completely forgot to set an alarm and apparently slept right through all the alerts._ And then _sorry_ again for good measure. There's also a text from Stark going _SEE EVERYTHING IS FINE_ , which Sam ignores, for now. 

Sam replies to Steve with, _these things happen_ and then, _how you feeling?_

He doesn't quite do breathing exercises, not exactly - but he does take a minute to slow his breathing _down_ , and deepen it, and try to shed some of the morning's aggravation and anxiety and the concurrent (and also counterproductive and, oh, while we're at it, not actually fair) desire to reach through the phone and shake Steve for scaring the shit out of him and go on for a bit about him being in the same building as - technically - a mass murderer. 

_I think this is what people mean when they say they have a hangover_ is Steve's reply. _Never got drunk before the procedure and couldn't after and can't now, but the whole headache and stupid and sick to your stomach thing sounds about right._

Once, in a hotel room in Peru after they'd both been up way the fuck too long, Steve complained about touch-screen keyboards and how they were taking over; Sam has the shrewd idea that if he were there he'd see more or less the same look on Steve's face and hear the same tone in his voice. 

That of a guy presented with something unfamiliar and unpleasant who doesn't want to sound like he's whining but would really like it all to just _stop_ , and also probably could use some (more) sleep. And the memory is maybe kind of funny, so Sam's mouth quirks and he texts back, _well as it happens there's something we like to call an 'emotional hangover' too, and sometimes the body and brain get really literal about it too. with symptoms like that somebody might think something momentous happened last night, or something._

_Fantastic,_ is Steve's reply, a word that he _only_ ever says sarcastically as far as Sam can tell. 

_eat something, drink a lot of water, have a shower,_ Sam replies, _you'll feel better. how's your houseguest?_

This time the bit telling him Steve's typing hangs on for a while, so Sam gets another couple forms done before Steve's reply pops up with: _Last night I got him to come inside and showed him the place, kitchen and bathroom and everything, showed him his room and kinda left him there because I couldn't think what else to do. Turned the light on, closed the door behind me because I didn't want him to feel like he was under surveillance. He stayed there until I went to sleep. I think he came out for a bit last night but he basically didn't touch anything except the picture of us was on its back and the knife that was his I have isn't in the dish. It's hard to tell if the light's on in his room given daylight but the door's closed and I haven't heard any movement at all yet. Nothing else disturbed, nothing else taken. So I don't know._

Sam sighs. He leans one elbow on the desk and taps the edge of his phone lightly against his forehead, trying to think.

He _wants_ to think the picture and the pocket knife are good signs, but he knows it's way too fucking early to tell that, so he drags himself back to the concrete: the picture and the pocket knife are signs of _reaction_ , of response. Out of everything, a guy who seems to have done his best to leave no sign he left the room he was put in moved the picture and took the knife, which means those two things made him feel _something_ , and probably a lot of it. 

The closed door, harder to read. And the lack of _anything_ else being touched makes Sam a little uneasy. He knows Steve, knows any tour given to just about _anyone_ coming into his home that includes things like the kitchen would come with an explicit and sincere invitation to get anything they wanted to eat or use. Frankly Sam thinks Steve just likes being _able_ to feed anyone and everyone who comes in as much as they want, and same went for other stuff. That somewhere back there's still the poor Depression kid who had to count each spoonful and hope there'd be enough, luxuriating in having so much he can share without thinking about it. 

The thing is, Steve eats like a stereotypical teenager. That's always made sense to Sam, because the caloric cost of just _being alive_ 's got to be pretty high, but logic would say it'll be the same for anyone else with similar enhancements. Conservation of energy, thermodynamics: the energy has to come from _somewhere_. 

So someone who had to be hungry ignored an explicit invitation to eat, even when there was no one around to see. There are a handful of explanations for that, but none of them leave Sam feeling great about it. 

He decides anything he could say drawing from that is too thin to be useful, and settles for replying, _pretty much guaranteed he just turned his world as upside down as he turned yours, Steve. big damn change. that's gonna take time to settle no matter what. my advice is honestly do what you normally do, let change settle into something else predictable and make a new kind of familiar. see where that gets you. I dont think I have to tell you,_ he adds, _that pushing too fast isn't a good idea._

Then he adds on the tail of that, _or to be careful._

_No,_ Steve says, and sticks a tongue-out emoji on the end of it. _And I don't have to tell you I'm edgy as Hell. But that makes sense, I can probably do that._ Then Steve adds, _Thanks. A lot. And sorry again if you got worried this morning._

_All good,_ Sam replies, and can't quite avoid thinking _fuck, Steve, you're young sometimes._

 

Before lunch Sam finishes most of his paperwork and then emails Natasha's last address with everything he knows so far. 

He wonders about the email for a bit, if it's safe, but mostly comes to the conclusion that he is in no fucking way capable of observing meaningful security on this one and if someone else doesn't figure out what to do about, oh, the entire world's reaction to history's most deadly and blood-soaked assassin staying in a spare room in Brooklyn, he himself is not going to be able to do shit anyway. There are things he can do, and things he can't do. He _can_ , maybe, hopefully, advise Steve on psychological shit and be a friend; he _can't_ handle the mess of whatever fucking espionage and political crap this could turn into. That has to be someone else's job. 

At most he can pray someone _is_ sorting out this shit, and that they can do it, because he's pretty sure Steve is in fact willing to start a new civil war right there in New York if someone tries to drag this guy away. Not to mention what the guy in question is capable of doing and destroying, all by himself. But prayer is just about all Sam can do. 

So he emails Natasha. And then he stares at the screen a bit and opens up a second email and types the first couple letters of Laura's address so the rest'll fill in. 

The version he sends to her is . . . edited. And he's pretty sure he knows what she's going to say anyway, but there's just a sliver of a chance he's wrong, so he gives it a shot. 

He skips lunch: he shouldn't, but does anyway. In between two appointments in the early afternoon he spends about fifteen minutes replying to Corinne's text bewailing how unreasonable her mom's being about the soccer trip and mostly hopes he manages to walk the precarious line between backing Cara up a bit - because she's mostly in the right this time, she's just . . . well, her approach could use a little work - and making Corinne take him off the list of people she'll talk to and be honest with. 

He's worried about it before his next appointment; afterwards, he feels like his entire perspective has been rearranged, putting Corinne securely on the "easy to deal with" end of the spectrum. It's the kind of thing that happens on a regular basis, and Sam more observes it with wry amusement than anything else. Some of his clients got really badly fucked up by whatever they went through wherever they went, and then some of them _came_ to the military fucked up by whatever happened to them before, and sometimes Sam really feels like he got off light, all things considered. It's the kind of thing the job does. 

It's after that appointment that Laura actually knocks on his door. The knock pushes it further open, since it was cracked to begin with, and Sam looks up and pushes away from the desk, chair wheels rolling until they hit the end of the plastic mat and get stopped by the carpet. "You look way too calm for an emergency," he says, which is _like_ a greeting. For them. 

"Cancellation," Laura says. She actually seems pretty upbeat, for all it looks like she didn't have time to do all her usual makeup this morning. Maybe she should sleep late more often. Sam's tried to convince her once or twice that she does not actually need full White Lady Over Fifty cake and lipstick (not that it looks bad, it just looks like way too much work and _she_ looks okay without it); today he might be able to see a few feathery veins in her cheeks but only because he's looking, and with the black and silver of the rest of her outfit she looks fine. 

And Sam can tell he's tired because he's down to noticing people's wardrobe and grooming. _That's_ the kind of shit his brain pulls when it can't afford to stop thinking for even one second, or he'll fall asleep. 

"I got your email," she goes on, "and I decided to go for some human contact instead of just emailing back. Not least because I'm a bit surprised at the question." She looks at him, evenly, levelly, and goes on, "I know that you know there's only one responsible step forward, in that kind of situation." 

Sam sighs: so much for the hope. He brushes fingers across his eyes, just briefly, and says, "Yeah, I know." He doesn't have to clarify that it's "in-patient care, willing or not". 

What he does have to do, though, is make a decision. And he does. It feels like it takes him forever, but really it's only a few minutes and if he's honest with himself, he made it back when he sent the first email. And if it comes down to it, he knows Laura's standing there waiting for him to make it, wondering if he's going to tell her what the hell is going on, what's behind the question and the time-off requests and everything else she's been letting him arrange and organize without question for the last few months. 

He makes the decision, and says, "You gone for coffee yet this afternoon?"

 

Laura Madden isn't the kind of person you can pin with _'the thing about her'_ , because there are too many, but one of the things about her is she's good at listening. She's so good at listening, in fact, that she can _preemptively_ listen, so that she gets people to talk when they didn't mean to, like she's somehow created a conversational void they feel like they need to fill. Sam can feel her doing it to him, now, but he still waits until she's got a coffee and they're both sitting outside in the slightly-too-cold on a bench that, for a miracle, isn't soaking wet. 

Then he says, "To start with, from this point on till we're done talking about this, absolutely everything I'm going to say is hypothetical. A thought exercise, if you will," he adds, letting a bit of humour in. 

"I love thought exercises," Laura replies blandly, and they both know the words _vaguely plausible deniability_ could be hovering over their heads in little cartoon thought-bubbles right now. "Fire away." 

Leaning back against the bench, Sam takes a sip of his way-too-many-th coffee of the day and says, "Imagine, if you will, you suddenly find yourself fighting evil with Captain America." 

Laura gives him a sardonic look: _technically_ he wasn't in any official press or even officially acknowledged, mostly by his own choice, but Laura wouldn't need that. She's a smart lady, and Sam's pretty sure she had what he used to do pegged, between things he'd said and things she'd picked up elsewhere, long before even the Insight mess. "Exciting, surely," she says, which is basically just a signal he can go on. 

"Imagine that in the middle of it all," Sam says, tapping one finger against the side of his cup, "you find out that evil's best weapon is actually Captain America's best friend. The one who's supposed to be dead, and turns out isn't. Turns out in fact," he goes on, leaning forward with his forearms on his knees, "that he survived the thing was supposed to kill him because of experiments the bad guys did during the war, and then they pumped him full of more shit, found a way to erase all his memories, conditioned him, trained him, and sent him out into the world as their attack dog. And when they weren't using him, they stuck him in a deep freeze, which apparently whatever experimental shit they did to him let him survive." 

Laura's face has gone blank, the kind of blank that says she's thinking like _hell_ behind the mask and carefully not showing any of it. Sam takes another drink and says, "Then imagine evil gets gloriously defeated, so technically this guy's free, except he still has no memories and he disappears. And Cap decides to go after him and makes it really fucking clear there's not much in the world more important than finding him, except few months later this guy shows up at Cap's door instead. Still doesn't remember anything. Thin, dressed in worn out stuff, doesn't talk much, watches everything like he's waiting to see if it'll bite. 

"And you know," Sam goes on again with a sigh, "that this guy can take down just about fucking everything that comes at him short of, I dunno, maybe the Hulk, because among other things you were personally there when he hauled you out of the sky _notwithstanding_ the full power of a portable engine designed to make you go fast enough to fly. And you know that hell will freeze over before you will ever get this guy to voluntarily walk through the doors of a hospital, and you're pretty sure that on top of all that, if someone tries to make him, it's not just this guy they'll be dealing with, it's Cap, too." 

Sam swirls the coffee in his take-out cup and says, "Imagine all that last bit basically happened last night." 

There's a pause for at least a minute. Quiet, suspended. Sam uses it to reflect on just how fucking insane everything he just said sounds, and how it's all true anyway. And then Laura says, conversationally, "I think I'd run away to Jamaica. Start a laundry service. Raise goats." 

With a snort that's almost a laugh, he'll admit it, Sam sits up again and says, "I'm terrible at laundry. The fight where me and Madlen figured out we shouldn't get married started about laundry. I have two laundry-settings: 'it all goes in the dryer' and 'dry-clean', and I pay someone else to do the dry-cleaning. Plus goats hate me, and they stink." 

Laura acknowledges that with a slight smile and shakes her hair out of her face, tucking the strands the wind tries to mess up back behind her ear. "Well then, in that situation I certainly see why in-patient treatment ceases to be an option." And then, with a lot more gravity to her tone she adds, "That's not a _good_ situation, Sam." 

"Trust me," Sam tells her. "I know. But it is what it is. Or would be. If it weren't hypothetical." 

They sit in silence for a few minutes, watching not a lot of people go by, because it's winter and the middle of the afternoon. Sam works on not letting the yawning hugeness of just how not-good a situation it is settle on him, because that's not helpful, until Laura clears her throat and uncrosses her legs. "I appreciate your sharing your hypothetical situation with me," she says, without any irony in her voice. "Did you want to leave it there, or did you want some advice?" 

Sam gestures with his cup to her and says, "If you have any, I'm all ears." And Laura's smile is brief and humourless. 

"Then imagine me some more details, Sam," she says. "As a great and coincidentally also imaginary man once said, I can't make bricks without clay." 

 

It's not like she's got anything new and earth-shaking to share, but it helps to have a second opinion that more or less backs up his own instincts, and at least someone who gets how unimaginably shitty it feels not to know more, have more ideas, have the right answers - well, at least he's got some sympathy and back up on that. It means when Steve calls, in the evening, Sam at least feels like he's got a handle on how to pass on what advice he can, and to get across just how far out to sea they really are, at least right now. 

"On the one hand, that's terrifying," he acknowledges, cutting out some of the lasagna to nuke and pinning the phone between his cheek and his shoulder, "but on the other hand don't feel too bad about feeling overwhelmed. It's uncharted territory without a map. We do what we can with what's in front of us, and hope we can keep track of north." 

Steve replies, a little wryly, "Someday that's not going to be the story of my life, and I won't know what to do." 

Later, Sam gets a text that says _he took the clothes and stuff I left outside the room before I left. plus pear, some bread, some gatorade which is still pretty awful by the way._

_fogey_ , Sam sends back, figuring some teasing is fair. And then, _go to sleep, Steve, you need the rest._

Before he goes to bed, he gives in and emails Madlen, asking her when she'll be back Stateside. And he turns the relaxation CD on again. Hopes he doesn't have dreams. 

And for the next five days, at least, the world doesn't end.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic] Next-morning-itis](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4081564) by [echolalaphile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/echolalaphile/pseuds/echolalaphile)




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